韩国银行年内家庭贷款限制措施接近去年同期三倍

South Korean banks have nearly tripled the number of measures restricting household loans, driven by regulators' aggressive push to cap the growth of household debt.
The country's five largest banks — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NH NongHyup — along with regional lenders, a total of 13 banks, imposed 79 measures restricting individual household loan products from the start of this year through August 12, according to the office of Rep. Song Eon-seog of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's National Policy Committee. That is 2.7 times the 29 measures recorded in the same period a year earlier. The figure aligns with a separate Seoul Economic Daily analysis showing that banks changed their household lending criteria 73 times this year.
Even when identical measures applied simultaneously across multiple loan products or sales channels — such as restrictions on mortgage insurance enrollment (MCI and MCG) — were counted as single cases, the upward trend was clear. Counted this way, the number rose to 47 this year from 21 in the same period last year, a 2.2-fold increase.
The restrictions accelerated further after the government announced in April that it would manage the annual growth rate of banks' household loans at around 1.5%. From April 1 through August 12, banks imposed 71 measures, more than three times the 23 recorded in the same period a year earlier.
The restrictions concentrated on housing-related loans. Curbs on mortgage loans for home purchases were the most common at 30 cases, followed by mortgage loans for living-expense purposes at 16 cases. Restrictions on credit loans numbered 28.
The timing of the tightening also moved much earlier in the year. Last year, half of the 63 annual restriction measures — 30 cases — took effect after November, showing a clear concentration toward year-end. This year, by contrast, 57 measures, or 72% of the total, were packed into June and July.
Loan management also spread to regional and internet-only banks, which had imposed few restrictions in the past. SC First Bank, Suhyup Bank, Kwangju Bank and iM Bank imposed no credit-loan restrictions last year, but this year rolled out new measures such as blocking applications through outside platforms and reducing loan limits. Kakao Bank likewise expanded to mortgage and credit loans the approval-volume controls it had applied only to jeonse deposit loans last year.
Critics say banks have sowed confusion among people buying homes to live in by frequently adjusting their lending criteria to meet annual volume targets. "The policy that was supposed to prevent a year-end lending cliff instead turned bank loans into a midsummer first-come, first-served rationing system, causing damage to owner-occupier buyers on things like balance-payment loans and only adding to market turmoil," Song said. "The authorities doubled their target from 1.5% to 3% in just four months — a clear policy failure in which the government itself admitted that its demand forecasts and policy design were wrong." (See related coverage in this newspaper's August 21 edition, pages 1 and 4.)